New principal appointed at Cardinal O'Hara

By
Patti Mengers, Delaware County Daily Times

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Archdiocese of Philadelphia Associate Superintendent of Secondary Schools Peter Balzano has been appointed principal of Cardinal O’Hara High School in Marple where he has been on-site helping with daily operations for several months archdiocesan officials said Friday.

The 43-year-old Marple resident succeeds Marie Rogai who was terminated last November because, archdiocesan officials said, they were seeking new leadership for the school’s administration. On Feb. 24, Rogai sued the archdiocese and several archdiocesan school officials as well as the Faith in the Future Foundation, which oversees the archdiocese’s 17 high schools, and its chief executive officer, Samuel Casey Carter, for breach of contract, defamation by implication and six other complaints.

Earlier this month archdiocesan officials announced that 46-year-old Thomas S. Fertal, who has been principal of Lancaster Catholic High School since 2010, will be the third president of the 50-year-old co-educational high school starting June 1. He is replacing William McCusker who announced his resignation from O’Hara in January. In 2001, McCusker succeeded the now-late Bishop Joseph McFadden who became O’Hara’s first president in 1993.

Former O’Hara administrator Michael J. McArdle, who earned an undergraduate degree in English from Villanova University in Radnor and a master’s degree in secondary education from West Chester University, will be director of financial aid for the Office of Catholic Education starting July 1, archdiocesan officials also announced Friday.

Before being named recently as associate superintendent of secondary schools, Balzano was director of secondary schools for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, a position he was appointed to in September 2011. He has been an archdiocesan educator for more than a decade including serving as assistant principal at Monsignor Bonner and Archbishop Prendergast High School in the Drexel Hill section of Upper Darby and at Lansdale Catholic High School in Montgomery County. Balzano holds a Bachelor of Science degree in secondary education from Temple University in Philadelphia and a Master of Science degree in strategic and organizational leadership from Neumann University, Aston.

Rogai, who is seeking a jury trial and a judgment in excess of $50,000, claims in the lawsuit that her colleagues had complimented her performance up until a “sneak attack” meeting last Nov. 8 arranged by the archdiocesan secondary education superintendent and associate superintendent demanding her resignation because she “doesn’t smile enough” and is “too direct.” Rogai said less than five months earlier she had been offered the position of associate superintendent for archdiocesan schools.

Rogai also alleged that last June she disagreed with Carter when he said McCusker “needed to go” and that she also told Carter a Faith in the Future Foundation board member had meddled in reinstating an O’Hara teacher she had been instrumental in placing on leave for misconduct. Archdiocesan spokesman Kenneth Gavin said officials in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia do not comment on pending litigation.